


braid no more that shining hair!

by embraidery



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: ALL the hair stuff., Cottagecore, Gen, Hair Braiding, Hair Washing, PLATONIC intimacy. i'm in love with caspian but lucy isn't., like extreme cottagecore, platonic intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23611219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embraidery/pseuds/embraidery
Summary: Lucy & Caspian play a sort of tag. They have to deal with the consequences when Caspian's a prat and gets sap in his hair.
Relationships: Caspian & Lucy Pevensie
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	braid no more that shining hair!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [androgynousmikewheeler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgynousmikewheeler/gifts).



> this is my au where the pevensie kids all live in a cottage together and caspian lives just down the stream and the eternal winter never happened and everything is fine, except miraz, if he exists in this au, which i haven't decided yet. (:
> 
> horatio!! please enjoy. i tried to include lucy interacting with narnian creatures, and lucy & caspian being bros, and just extreme softness. i daresay i succeeded. ;)
> 
> title is from a poem by richard lovelace.

Lucy crouched down behind a boulder, peeking out around the edge to get a good view of the forest.

Caspian was nowhere to be seen.

It was early springtime, the air crisp between her teeth, but her blood surged warm through her veins from all the running she’d been doing. Lucy sank to her knees, the moss working damp patches into the knees of her trousers. She took a deep breath. She’d thrown her hair into a braid a while ago, but the softer hairs framing her face were beginning to work themselves loose. She brushed them back behind her ears with both hands.

Lucy startled when a sparrow landed on her shoulder.

“Sorry, Miss Lucy!” the sparrow chirped. “Didn’t mean to startle!”

“Shhh!” Lucy whispered. “Caspian might hear.”

“Oh, no, he’s all the way--”

“Briar, I can’t  _ cheat!”  _ Lucy exclaimed, aghast. 

“He’s cheating!” Briar argued.

Lucy popped her head up over her boulder as if to catch Caspian red-handed. “Is he! Well, I suppose… Where is he?”

Briar puffed up his feathers self-importantly. “He’s one hundred yards that way, between the lightning-struck pines.”

“Thank you, Briar.” Lucy stroked his little head with the tip of one finger. She narrowed her eyes as she looked over the boulder once more. “Wait. How did you know he was cheating?”

“I heard him talking to the missus,” Briar exclaimed. “She convinced him to cheat, the dirty bird!”

Lucy laughed. “Well, it is just a game. Thanks, Briar.” She waved as he fluttered away. She was still looking up at the sky when she felt a tug at her apron pocket. 

Lucy whirled around to see Caspian sprinting away with the ribbon they’d been stealing back and forth.

“CAS-pian!” Lucy shrieked, taking off after him. Caspian’s laughter was the only response. He was years older and inches taller than Lucy, easily widening the gap between them. Lucy slowed to a jog, then a walk, as she thought. She wanted to keep him in sight, but he would soon disappear behind the trees. 

“Briar!” Lucy called, softly, hoping Caspian was too far away to hear. She heard cheeping as Briar sailed towards her on swift little wings.

“Miss Lucy!”

“Can you fly after Caspian?” Lucy asked, pointing in the direction he’d gone.

“Absolutely!” Briar shot off in that direction like a feathery missile. Lucy jogged after him. Briar came back to report that Caspian was back between the lightning-struck trees. Lucy changed direction to come up from behind him, just as he’d done to her. She was nearly there when an errant twig snapped under her feet and Caspian took off like a startled deer.

Lucy saw Caspian put the ribbon between his teeth (gross!) and begin to shin up a pine tree. She stopped at the base of the tree, hands on hips.

“What do you think you’re doing, Caspian?” she called, head tilted to the sky. “There’s no way out of a tree!”

“Are you going to climb up after me?” Caspian asked, voice muffled from clenching his teeth around the ribbon. He hooked one leg, then the other, over a sturdy branch. He grinned down at Lucy from his lofty perch.

“Maybe!” Lucy shouted. It was a tree without many supporting branches, so her core and arm muscles would have to do most of the work in getting up it. Lucy was in good shape, but it was still an intimidating task. She had just put her arms around the tree when she heard a noise of disgust from up above.

“There’s sap in my hair!” Caspian called down. 

Lucy stepped back from the tree and looked up at him. “It’s what you deserve!” she teased. 

Caspian held his hands up in surrender. “Truce while we get it out?”

“Hmm.” Lucy stroked an imaginary beard with her thumb and forefinger. “I suppose that’s only fair.”

With that, Caspian made his way down from the tree. He stuffed the ribbon into his pocket.

“How does one get sap out of their hair?” he asked Lucy, touching the back of his head. His hand came away covered in translucent sticky sap.

“Edmund put some maple syrup in my hair once. Susan used oil to get it out,” Lucy said doubtfully, picking up the ends of Caspian’s hair to look at the knot of sap. “Shall we try it?”

“If you think it would work, we should try it,” Caspian agreed.

They walked back to the Pevensies’ cottage together, a little out of breath from the exercise and the cool mountain air. 

Once they were inside, Lucy retrieved the clay jar of oil from their sideboard and a spoon from the drawer. She poured oil into the spoon before smearing it over the back of Caspian’s head. She rubbed in the oil with the spoon, reluctant to touch the stickygreasy mess, before running a comb through Caspian’s hair. It snagged on the sap. Lucy applied more oil to Caspian’s hairand rubbed it in with her fingers.

Caspian picked up the abandoned spoon and looked at his face in the back of it. Warped as his reflection was, he could still see his narrow face and long blond hair. 

“Let’s just cut it off,” he said suddenly.

Lucy poked her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she used the comb to remove a glob of sap. “It’s started to come out! I think we just need more oil.”

“I think I would like to cut my hair even if you get all the sap out.” Caspian set the spoon down and picked up a long piece of hair that had escaped the sap, looking at it in the soft light of the oil lamp.

“But your beautiful hair!” Lucy cried, unconsciously gripping it tight. She loosened her hold when Caspian let out a hiss of air. 

“It will grow back soon,” Caspian asserted. 

Lucy took her sticky fingers from Caspian’s hair and wiped them on her handkerchief. She moved around to look at Caspian’s face. “What would you want it to look like?”

Caspian picked up the spoon again. He used his other hand to loosely pull back his hair on one side. “Perhaps something like this?” He made a snipping motion with one hand to show her the length he was thinking of.

“Alright.” Lucy touched his hair doubtfully. “Do you want me to get Su--”

“I think you will do perfectly, Lucy,” Caspian said, catching her wrist. “Thank you for doing this for me.” He smiled up at her, his eyes full of a particular kind of joy Lucy had never seen in them before. 

She took a deep breath and sighed it out, already smiling in response. “Alright. I am going to cut your hair!” 

Lucy rubbed her hands together as she thought. Susan usually cut their hair when it was wet. Lucy retrieved the silver basin and pitcher from their place on the sideboard and set them on the table next to Caspian. 

“How warm do you want the water for your hair?” Lucy asked, already pouring water from the pitcher into the medium pot. 

“I don’t need warm water,” Caspian said instantly.

Lucy wrinkled her nose. “Are you sure?”

Caspian tilted his head to one side as he thought. “Warm water would be nice, actually,” he admitted, and Lucy laughed. 

“Would you like some tea?”

“Please.”

Lucy put two kettles on the fire, one for tea and one for Caspian’s hair. They had their tea while the other water warmed. The cool spring-evening air coming in through the open windows was a nice counterpoint to the crackling fire, and they had quite a lovely little chat over biscuits Lucy had made that morning. Susan and Edmund came in from outside, pink-cheeked and alive from the chill, bearing two dead rabbits. They had hugs all around before Edmund took the rabbits outside to skin and Susan went to change.

"Would you braid my hair before you cut it?" Caspian asked.

"Of course I will!" The remaining oil made Lucy’s job harder, but she still transformed Caspian’s head into a swirl of braids weaving through each other. They only owned one mirror, so he couldn't see most of it. Lucy ran her fingers over each braid as she described them. It was fun to take the braids out, too, leaving his hair nicely wavy.

When the water was done, Lucy poured it into the basin and had Caspian lean his head back into it. His hair floated on the water like so much golden kelp. Lucy collected water in her cupped hands and poured it over the back of Caspian’s head, watching the quicksilver rivulets rush back down into the basin. She ran her fingers through his hair, watching the gold of it weave in and around her hands, appreciating its silk while she still could. Susan did this for Lucy when cutting her hair, but she usually rushed through it, something else already on her mind. 

Lucy went to retrieve two towels, their mirror, and scissors. She squeezed the water from Caspian’s hair and draped the other towel around his shoulders. 

“Are you ready?”

“Are you?” Caspian asked her. 

She could see his reflection raising his eyebrows at her through the mirror. “Yes.” She picked up the scissors and snipped them twice on thin air before getting to work. Susan gave her an encouraging smile from over her knitting.

Caspian closed his eyes. He took in the metallic  _ snip, snip, snip;  _ the gentle tugs on his scalp whenever the scissors closed; the featherfall of hair brushing past his face to land on his shoulders with the pitter-patter of rain. 

Edmund came in from outside. He wrapped the rabbits in waxed paper and put them in the icebox. Then he picked up their mandolin and began to play. They had all made it together; Peter and Susan did most of the woodwork with Edmund as their willing apprentice. Lucy had painted it all over with flowers and braided the strings from centaur tail hair she found snagged on a branch. 

The mandolin chords, the chords of a familiar folk song, slipped through the air like a shoal of fish through a warm sea. Susan began singing first with her clear mezzo voice. Lucy joined in, too, though it was hard to focus while cutting Caspian's hair. Caspian hummed along. 

Cutting hair was rather fun once Lucy got the hang of it. She had cut off most of his hair in one fell swoop, and now she was slowly inching the cut upwards until Caspian declared it short enough. She even got fancy and snipped the ends at an angle, softening the blunt edges of Caspian’s new bob.

After Lucy finished Caspian's haircut, she called Susan over to look. Susan just made a few small finishing touches with the scissors. Lucy whisked the towel off Caspian's shoulders with a flourish, sending a shower of hair snippings to the wooden floor. 

Caspian picked up the mirror and looked at his new reflection. His angular cheekbones were softened by his hair curling around his face like gentle hands, rubbing his cheeks with loving fingers. He reached out to touch the mirror, running one finger over his silvery jawline, to which his hair now fell.

“It’s wonderful, Lucy,” he said softly, overwhelmed. “Thank you.” Lucy folded him into a hug, awkward for the difference between their sitting and standing heights, but all the sweeter for it. 

Lucy smiled at her family, hands tucked under her chin. She danced to the last strains of mandolin music as Caspian swept up all the loose hair clippings with the little dustpan. It was warm and cosy inside the house and Lucy never wanted to leave.

  
She realised she never  _ had  _ to leave. So with that, she put the kettle on so they could all have a little more tea.


End file.
